Condemning Rapunzel
by SmileyBoo
Summary: I was young, once. I had a mother, a father, a brother, and a home wherein I lived, like any other child of my time. Love was abundant, and I was well aware it knew no bounds.' Thus begins the fantastical tale of the so-called 'witch' in 'Rapunzel'...


Disclaimer: I own...nada.

Condemning Rapunzel

I was young, once. I had a mother, a father, a brother, and a home wherein I lived, like any other child of my time. Love was abundant, and I was well aware it knew no bounds. My parents' romance was proof of that. Mother never told me of the full tale, but it seemed she was in a predicament, and that my father saved her, only to be separated from her for years. However, no such issues plagued my charmed childhood, and any references to their grim story were above my sun-kissed head.

At that time, we lived in a castle, whose marble halls and gilded walls encircled my world. My brother and I spent the hours sliding down the brass banisters, playing hide-and-seek amid the Grecian columns of the foyer, and telling stories to each other as we lay upon the silken rugs on our bedroom floor. It would seem as though it were a place of eternal joy, that world within the stone exterior. That was not the reality.

Mother did not want us. It was not that she never wanted children; just that she did not want them when she had us. She was a parent too young, stripped of youth's benefits before she had time to enjoy them. But before long, my twin and I had entered the world, her life henceforth devoted solely to us; and our father, once he was found. She loved us, of course. But that did not soften the malevolent gaze whenever she chose to watch us at play. It was as if she was saying, in her silent way, for she was never one for words, "There was once a time when I could play as freely." I could never understand why she had not done so.

In my twelfth year, I blossomed, entering the height of beauty, the likes of which all take for granted, until it fades. It was then that my mother made me a prisoner, and prevented me from enjoying such benefits. She felt the need to protect me from life's cruelty, from making the mistakes she had. But had she the right?

Only my brother, somehow exempt from my fate, was allowed to leave the castle walls, and as time wore on, I was left alone. No person deserves a life unlived, so on the eve of my twentieth birthday, I escaped.

In the dead of night I fled the castle and ran deep into the woods on the outskirts of the kingdom. At last I was free. However, as morning dawned, my absence became known, and search parties could be heard for miles around. Surely I would be brought back to my prison within the hour. And I would have-were it not for an old recluse who approached from amid the trees, and asked if I should like to get away. I didn't understand. Where could I run? But he insisted he was a man of mysticism, and that, if I so chose, he could send me to a different time, where no one would ever find me. I agreed. With a flick of his wrist and some muttered words, all went black.

I awoke in a field of rapunzel, the noise of a bustling town nearby; safe. However, as I became accustomed to life in this village, which, I found, existed in a time before my birth, I found myself unable to fit in with the peasants, my upbringing differing greatly from theirs. Hence, I became increasingly antisocial, my appearance unkempt, and my dwelling by the rapunzel field a darkened hovel.

One evening, I spotted a man sneaking onto my land and stealing some of the plant I had claimed my own. Confronting him, he told me of his predicament; his pregnant wife would only live if she could eat my lettuce. He promised me the world-if only I let him give his wife my rapunzel. I considered his offer, and decided that I might like to have a little child of my own, having no other companionship. Thus, I asked him for his yet unborn babe. He said yes.

The blonde child was a girl, and I named her for the crop that brought her to me; Rapunzel. She was a docile creature, and loved me with the utmost affection. Though, despite our enchanted existence, something unnerved me about her. Her looks? Her manner? When she entered the prime of her years, as I had, so long ago, it dawned on me that she was reminiscent of one I despised in my youth, so much in fact, that I could barely endure her presence. For this reason, I locked her in a tower from which she was unable to leave, having only one window where I could enter, upon asking the girl to let down her cascades of golden hair, which I used to climb up.

Time wore on, Rapunzel growing lonely and resentful of her guardian, which, for some reason, did not offend me in the least. I found the child's imprisonment to be enjoyable-as if justice were served through my actions, though of what sort I was unsure. My joy grew as her sorrow increased. Thus, when I found her, some years into this arrangement, singing to herself in an unnervingly contented manner, my suspicions were roused. What could possibly have happened to provoke such a change?

In the following weeks, the truth was made clear. I watched as my naïve ward's dresses tighten, the threads strained under added weight, and my fears were brought to light when, one autumn morn, she asked, "Why is it that the prince takes such less time to climb up here than you do?" My throat tightened. The jealousy of my youth…the attempt to protect me from mankind… Rapunzel did not remind me of anyone; she _was_ the one I hated most in the entire world…

I condemned my mother to her fate.

In turn, she did the same to me.


End file.
